Crazy, Random Happenstance
by Theodora Helena Miller
Summary: Kathryn just wants to find the mysterious stranger she met at her brother's wedding. Judith just wants to make sure her brother is happy.
1. Chapter 1

"You're Michael's sister," a woman said, and Kathryn jerked her head up. A tall, slim woman with medium brown skin and smooth black hair was watching her with a narrow-eyed intensity that made Kathy wonder if she was being interrogated.

She realized she was being rude, staring at the woman, and stood up, holding out a hand. "Kathryn Sevenson. Uh, call me Kathy."

"It's nice to meet you," the other woman said, and shook Kathy's hand quite firmly before sliding into the seat beside her.

"Which of the grooms do you know?" Kathy asked, because Fisk and Michael weren't exactly known for their large social circles.

"I'm Callista's plus one," said the woman.

Callista was known to Kathy as one of Fisk's few links to his past, a morally questionable but alluring defence lawyer responsible for introducing Rosamund, Kathy's cousin, to her husband Rudy. Kathy looked around and found Callista dancing with the justice of the peace not far from Fisk and Michael.

The stranger followed her gaze. "Fisk's marrying out of his league," she commented.

"Um, excuse you?" Kathy said.

"He's kind of an asshole, isn't he? And Michael's a nice guy."

Kathy bristled. "Anyone who actually knows Fisk knows he's one of the kindest people you will ever meet, provided you're not rude to him or Michael."

She felt stupid a moment later when her companion smirked at her and said, "Well, if he gets along with the in-laws… So they're happy together," she added curiously.

"Of course they are," said Kathy, watching Michael try to coax Fisk back out onto the dance floor during some ridiculously sappy song. "Like something out of a fairytale."

"Don't say that. Fairytales are hardly examples of healthy romantic relationships."

Kathy grinned. "Michael's always loved fairytales. Hence the fantasy novels."

"What about you?" she said. "What does the only Sevenson girl do with her life?"

"I'm in college," Kathy said. She was bursting to tell this total stranger all about the work she'd been doing, the body farm internship she'd just gotten the acceptance letter to, the hypothesis that had led her to go into forensic sciences in the first place. But her mother was very good about reminding her not to start babbling about dead bodies to strangers or in public.

But the stranger had apparently noticed the pause. "Studying what?"

"Uh, forensic pathology," said Kathy.

"I've just passed my bar exam," said the woman. "Criminal law. I'm going into prosecution. Maybe I'll see you in the courtroom sometime."

Kathy hesitated, and then plunged into an explanation of her hypothesis, while the other woman listened with barely disguised interest. When she finished outlining the experiments she was going to start running, the other woman leaned forward and said, "But how can you control for the variables involved in your typical body dump?"

"That's the thing, it's focusing on the effects of the nutrients on the plant life, so it matters less than, say, the use of something to deter cadaver dogs in body dumps, or things to shield it from the elements, because those will break and allow seepage."

And oh, gods, she'd just used the word _seepage_ in a conversation with a hot girl.

"Kathy!" Michael called, and Kathryn turned to wave at him. By the time she noticed the movement, the woman was already walking away. Kathy gaped as she vanished into the crowd. "Kathy?" Michael said, quieter and breathless.

"You look spooked," Fisk said.

Kathy tore her eyes away from where the woman had disappeared and shrugged. "I just had a really weird conversation with Callista's plus one. Don't suppose you know her name?"

"Callista didn't bring a plus one," said Fisk. "What'd she look like? I know everyone here."

(Fisk, for being an editor, had taken to event planning with remarkable ease. He claimed it was because of all the book tours he had to deal with, being a famous author's plus-one. Kathy told him he'd just missed his true calling as a wedding planner, which had gotten her a handful of colour swatches dropped on her head.)

"Tall," said Kathy. "Uh, she was wearing a yellow coat? I'm not a forensic artist, I don't do living people."

"That is weird," said Michael. He sounded supremely unperturbed. Kathy had to laugh, meeting her new brother-in-law's eyes with a grin.

Fisk rolled his eyes. "Someone crashed our reception, and you're not the least bit concerned? Just how much champagne have you had? Wait, what am I saying, this is normal for you."

Michael beamed sunnily at him. "And yet you married me anyway," he said.

"Sap," Fisk grumbled, and kissed him.

-.-.-.-

Once outside, away from her brother's prying eyes, Judith shrugged out of her yellow coat and tucked it into her purse despite the chill and waited for her brother and his new husband. It was getting late, and the husband's—Michael's—cousin Rosamund had told her that they were leaving for their honeymoon tonight.

She didn't have to wait long.

"I can't hail a cab if you're distracting me," Fisk told Michael, who was wrapped around Fisk like an overzealous octopus.

Judith watched surreptitiously as Michael stepped away and gazed adoringly at Fisk. He wasn't bad looking, with strong features and light brown hair, although she knew for a fact he'd had to have the suit he was wearing altered, because he was too tall and too thin for clothing to fit him off the rack. Fisk probably did the alteration himself to save money, even though the wool blend her brother was wearing (and the success of his husband's books) told her he wasn't going to want for money anytime soon.

They looked happy, shoving at each other as they loaded their suitcases into the taxi and slid inside. Maybe Kathryn had been right.

Even as she thought it, she spotted the Sevenson girl leave the reception, waving at her brother as the cab pulled away.

Judith watched her curiously as she spoke to Callista, though they were too far for her to hear what she was saying. She slipped away, though, before she could be spotted. The last thing she needed was Fisk to know she was there.


	2. Chapter 2

"Pretty sure that's considered stalking," Nettie - law enforcement major from Reno - said. "I mean, if we're talking about actual law, that's, like, pretty damn illegal, Kat."

Kathy's dorm room was a haven for various girls from the university's Criminal Justice department, so illegal behaviour was probably not wise, but she _really_ wanted to know who this woman was. So she could ask her out, possibly.

Although, yeah, the stalking was pretty creepy. Still, you crash someone's wedding, of course you're gonna get tracked down. Right?

"She liked my hypothesis, Nettie," said Kathryn.

Nettie bit her lip, and then sighed. "Okay, fine, but only because it's a mystery. LUCY!"

Lucy - computer forensics major from Brooklyn - tugged her headphones off and half-turned away from her laptop. "Yeah?"

"Can you hack the ABA and get a list of women who passed the most recent bar exam in New York?"

"Sure," said Lucy, unperturbed. At least half of the cyber security students Kathy knew were hackers in their free time, and Lucy was probably the most shameless about it. "Any other criteria to narrow it down?"

Kathy cleared her throat. "Uh, non-Caucasian, under thirty, criminal law."

"Gimme twelve hours and a lot of root beer," Lucy said, and put her headphones back on.

"I'm getting serious How I Met Your Mother vibes from this story," Nettie said. Then, looking around for Kathy's roommate before lowering her voice, she added, "Tell Kara the coat was red, I can't take another marathon."

"Come _on_," said Kathy, "It was only as bad as all that because you insisted you wanted to watch the gods-awful finale."

Nettie nodded solemnly. "And I've regretted it since. Kara!" She said brightly, when Kathy's roommate swept into the room that very moment with their pizzas.

They used to order just the one pizza, because there were only four of them at the start, but then someone discovered that the girls in 41B had pizza nights on Mondays, and now they had to have five, or resort to murdering their classmates to defend their pizza.

"You need to talk to all the other guests," Nettie said, when she'd fended off someone trying to get the last slice of veggie delight. "Ask them whether they know her."

"I'll draw her," suggested Kara. She was building with the little plastic table-things meant to keep the lid off of the delicious, delicious cheese, because Kara went crazy without

Kathy perked up. "Like a police sketch?"

"That's totally unnecessary," said Lucy. "I'll be able to hack into this, I'm sure of it." She didn't stop typing as she spoke, still staring at a wall of command text.

"I'll go through the guest book and make a list of names, numbers, and addresses for our investigation, you guys work on that sketch," Nettie said firmly.

-.-.-.-

By the time Kathy got to the first active day of her body farm internship, the half-formed idea of finding the woman again had solidified into an urgent need to make sure she hadn't imagined the entire thing.

So she somehow ended up explaining all of this to two of the other students from a different university, one a gorgeous black girl with an impeccable fashion sense, the other a stocky Canadian guy who had apparently missed his childhood tutorial on smiling.

"And then, she just disappeared!" Kathy finished, waving the spade around. "I swear, I'm starting to think she's a ghost."

"Why do you want to find her so badly?" Quidge asked.

Lissy pretended to swoon. "She's in _love_."

"Don't be deliberately obtuse," said Quidge, as he scooped soil into the sample tube. His lips twitched, the closest Kathy had seen him to smiling.

"It'd be so romantic! Falling in love with a ghost at your brother's wedding, trying to find her, only to discover she's been dead for a hundred years…"

"The first black woman to pass the bar exam in New York City was Jane Bolin, and she would've been 6 years old a hundred years ago," Quidge said.

Kathy opened her mouth to ask how he knew that, then closed it. She'd asked her brother Benton how he knew random facts too many times, she knew the dangers.

"Okay, so, maybe not a hundred years," said Lissy, sounding a bit put out. "Hey! Maybe it _was_ Jane Bolin."

Quidge groaned, and Kathy laughed.


	3. Chapter 3

This was the most important interview of her life, and Judith could barely focus. Not that she needed to—the questions were all rote, and she could answer them in her sleep.

Until he threw a curveball.

"Are you sure you want to go into prosecution? It's just, most people with a brother like yours would be more interested in defense."

Judith clenched her jaw, doing her best not to snap at Worthington that he knew _nothing_ about Fisk. But instead, "Maybe less kids would become criminals at fourteen if we got criminals off the streets before they could start recruiting," she said calmly. She didn't say that she'd throw a case without even questioning it if she doubted the defendant's guilt enough.

Worthington seemed to hear it anyway, though he did say, "I think you'll be a good fit for the prosecutor's office, Miss Fisk."

-.-.-.-

Judith held her phone between her shoulder and her ear as she let herself into her apartment. "Anna," she said.

"—and you wouldn't believe Lissy's latest obsession," Anna continued. "She's convinced her friend is in love with a black lesbian lawyer _ghost_."

Lissy fixated on things with remarkable tenacity for someone who fell in love with something - a song from any number of genres both mainstream and obscure, a truly awful movie where straight white people inevitably shared an angsty kiss in the rain, a colour, a poet... she'd channeled her love for detective stories and archaeology and for science and for, of all things, dissection (the months after she first dissected a frog were the worst, and Judith still refused to eat chicken off the bone) into a forensic pathology major.

The detective stories were Judith's fault, admittedly. She'd devoured Holmes stories as a child and read them to Lissy well before Lissy was ready to become fascinated with crime. Archaeology was all on Fisk, and science was their father's influence. Her love for pretty things was from Anna's influence.

So a tragic supernatural love story was hardly news, and Judith was exhausted.

"Anna," said Judith. "I just got home, I have to go."

"All right," Anna sighed.

"Tell the children I say hello," said Judith.

Anna hummed. "And Max, right? He already thinks you don't like him, Judith."

Max was a rich guy from the sort of family that probably held the Roosevelt family in reverence and almost definitely patronized ridiculous, gentrified boutiques in bad neighborhoods. But he was a decent man, who loved Anna and their two children and only sometimes got judgmental about their estranged gay felon of a brother.

"And Max," Judith acknowledged. "Good_bye_, Anna."

"I love you," said Anna, because she was the sort of person who shared those 'tag people you love' posts on facebook and tagged her entire friend's list.

"I love you too," said Judith.

She ate leftover takeout and watched her favorite Elementary episode when she'd gone through her usual routine of coming home - keys in the bowl on top of the table by the door, formal clothes back on their hangers, dishwasher filled with her lunch containers, pyjamas donned.

Robotic and brutally effective, yet enthusiastic, her favorite professor had said about her address of mock-courts.

The fact was, Judith had a life plan. A carefully built map that would get her through her life, and the minutia of every day included in it. Fisk had stopped being part of her plans years ago.

And yet she'd ended up at his wedding reception.

-.-.-.-

That night, Judith dreamt that she walked into the courtroom to find Fisk in handcuffs and Max in his robes and Kathryn on the witness stand, explaining some forensics and concluding, "—therefore I believe Mr. Fisk was responsible for the murders."

She woke up in a cold sweat when dream-Max called on her to cross-examine the defendant.


	4. Chapter 4

"Why do all of Fisk's friends slam the door in our face?" said Kathy, staring at the wood of another such door. This one belonged to someone named Nate Jobber, who'd taken one look at her and Nettie and told at them to piss off. At least the other ones had let them get a few words out.

"Well," said Nettie, "maybe this woman threatened them."

"Oh, come _on_, there's no way she could know I'm looking for her."

"Unless she's stalking you while you try, and fail, to stalk her."

Kathy groaned. "Ugh, you might as well marry Quidge, you can be cynical together. Come on, I've got to meet Rosamund for lunch, and you're coming."

Nettie frowned. "Who the hell is Quidge, and why am I coming to lunch with you and Rosamund?" she asked.

"Because I need a reason to not spend the whole time talking about Mr. Perfect."

Rosamund and Rudy had gotten married a few months before Michael and Fisk, and they were still in a downright sickening newlywed phase.

"Maybe Rosamund spoke to our mystery woman," said Nettie.

"Oooh," Kathy said, "maybe!"

It turned out Rosamund had spoken to the mystery woman, and longer than Kathy had. She took the sketch and ran her perfectly manicured fingers over the fine lines of the sketch. "I met her," she said. "Very well-articulated. Lawyer, you said? Yeah, she said her name was Judith," said Rosamund. "She's related to Fisk somehow. Cousins, maybe."

Nettie and Kathy exchanged looks. "How do you know that?" asked Kathy, when she managed to speak again.

Rosamund waved a hand at them dismissively. "Similar facial structure," she said. "The jawline, see, it has significant points here, here, here, and _here_. And the brow, look, Fisk's is more ridged, but it's almost identical."

Kathy's jaw dropped.

"Don't look so surprised. When you study cosmetology, you start to notice these things," said Rosamund airily.

-.-.-.-

"Holy shit," breathed Lucy, leaning away from the computer.

Kara got up to look over her shoulder at the list of names. "What?"

Lucy pointed at a single name on the list, and Kara whistled long and low.

-.-.-.-

"I am _freaking out_ right now," Kathy yelped into the phone fifteen minutes later.

"Judith Fisk, 29, doctorate of law. Dude, you met your brother's sister-in-law," said Lucy. "_Dude_. I can't with your life."

"_You_ can't? I have a crush on my - my sister by marriage! My best friend's estranged sister!"

Lucy laughed. "Kara's already writing a screenplay."

"Ugh, I don't have time for this, I need to be focusing on science. I went into STEM to avoid people."

"Don't you have an internship right now?" Lucy asked.

Kathy thumped her head against her steering wheel. "Lissy is going to freak out. This is more dramatic than ghosts. Okay, okay. All right, uh, Lucy, I owe you so much root beer. I'll talk to you later."

Lissy was waiting for Kathy by the gates, bouncing on the balls of her feet, and the explanation of what they'd found out carried them to the plot they were studying. She barely managed to get it all out before Lissy said, "Can I set you up on a date?"

Kathy blinked at her. "A blind date?" she said. "Lissy, you're not _listening_, I found the stranger from Fisk's wedding, it's his _sister_, Lucy tracked down her facebook!"

"I know, I know, and I'm really happy for you, but I've known this girl for a while, okay, I think you'd be _great_ together," Lissy said earnestly.

"How am I even in the same internship as you two?" grumbled Quidge.

Lissy widened her eyes even more imploringly, and Kathy couldn't help but cave.

"Fine," Kathy said. "Um, when?"

"Tonight!" said Lissy. "Here, give me your phone, I'll put my number in it!"

Kathy handed over the phone and turned to Quidge. "Admit it, you're going to miss us when this internship ends."

"I am going to run like hell to the other side of the planet after this internship ends. Does Australia have forensic pathologists?"

"Pretty sure most of their deaths are due to deadly animals or heat stroke," said Kathy. "But you could still be a medical examiner."

Quidge nodded. "Sounds like a plan."


	5. Chapter 5

"I went to Fisk's wedding reception," Judith said.

Anna's fork clattered to her plate. "You _what_?"

"You know I keep tabs on him, Anna, don't act like you don't have Max check for outstanding warrants once or twice a year. Anyway, he married that boyfriend of his."

"Fisk got _married_?" Anna said.

"Is it true love?" asked Thomas, wide-eyed.

"Maybe," Judith told him. "I talked to the guy's sister, and she seems to like Fisk. You should've heard her jump to Fisk's defense when I said he was an a—aaaaaah, a big meanie," she said, glancing at her niece and nephew.

"Oh my _god_," said Lissy.

Judith stared at her. "What's wrong?"

"Um," Lissy said. "Fisk getting married, it's just, it's really weird. Yeah."

"What's his husband _like_?" Anna asked.

"He looks at Fisk like he hung the moon, it's actually kind of disgusting how in love he is. He's rich, though, and Fisk's probably responsible for half of that wealth. Should've known he'd go into editing, he gets to mock bad writing all _day_."

"It's good that he found a more… _stable_ job," said Max.

Judith flipped him off under the table, and he frowned at her.

-.-.-.-

Later, Judith went to put her dinner dish in the sink, and Lissy followed. "What was Michael's sister like? Did you talk to her long?"

"Her name's Kathy, and she likes Fisk well enough, which would suggest the relationship is serious between Fisk and Michael. How well do you know the other people at your body farm internship?"

Lissy made a weird face. "Not at all," she said. "Why?"

"No reason," said Judith.

-.-.-.-

It wasn't until Judith was getting her coat to leave that Lissy cornered her again.

"Can I set you up on a blind date?" Lissy asked. "Please?"

"What? No. Why?"

"I met this girl, she's looking for someone like you, it'd be perfect, I _know_ you'll like her."

Judith snorted. "I don't like anyone."

"So, that's a yes, then? Excellent!" Lissy said, and kissed her cheek before dashing off. Judith sighed, but didn't argue.


	6. Chapter 6

Rosamund wiped her hands on her skirt and picked up the phone. "Hello?" she said.

"Hi! Is this Rosamund?"

"It is," said Rosamund. "I don't mean to be rude, but who is this?"

"My name is Elissa Fisk. I think we have a few mutual friends. Do you have a minute to talk?" added the woman - Elissa.

"Yeah," Rosamund said, and went to sit down.

"When I was ten years old, my brother left home," Elissa said. "He was barely fourteen. He's been going by surname only since I was little. Anyway, at the wedding - Michael, right, that's his name? - at Fisk and Michael's wedding, Michael's little sister Kathryn met my second oldest sister Judith. I think you did too?"

"I did. How'd you know about that?"

"It's sort of a funny story," said Elissa, and explained.

Rosamund listened, spellbound, at the perfect rom-com unfolding. "You set them up on a date? That's so cute!"

"They're _adorable_," agreed Elissa. "Anyway, I stole your number from Kathy's phone in the hopes that you'd be willing to help Kathy get ready for the date. I don't want her backing out."

"And you'll get Judith?" guessed Rosamund.

Elissa replied, "Yep! Oh, I've got class, just - ask Kathy if she has any plans Friday night, and go from there."

"It's been nice talking to you, Elissa," Rosamund said.

"Call me Lissy," said Lissy.

-.-.-.-

"Wear a black dress," Lissy ordered from where she was sprawled out on Judith's bed.

Judith hesitated. Then, "I have a lot of those."

"Are any body-conforming?" asked Lissy.

"Yes," said Judith.

"Bring them out here so I can help you pick."

Judith sighed, but gathered that section of her closet into her arms. Lissy gaped when she dumped the mountain of dresses on the bed, and Judith glared. "Not a word," she said.

Lissy nodded, already going through the dresses. She selected a backless one with flattering seam-lines and held it out. "This," she said.

"Really?"

"Yes," said Judith. "Now, tell me, _why_ do you own… twenty-seven little black dresses?"

"Because they're basically pencil skirts with camisoles built in," said Judith. "Also, I look _fantastic_ in them."

"Uh-huh, and that's why you're wearing one on this date. She's great, I swear, you're going to like her."

-.-.-.-

"Try this on," Rosamund said. "It's tight on me, so it should fit you."

Kathy glanced at her friend's breasts, which would probably suffocate in the coat she was being offered, and shrugged the coat on over her clothes. It did fit nearly perfectly. She ran her fingers over the cobalt blue wool. "It looks… kind of like Judith's yellow coat," she murmured.

"Don't be silly, that was a trench cut with pleats, this is a princess cut," said Rosamund.

Kathy nodded, not understanding half of that. "So… I look okay?"

"You look lovely," Rosamund promised. "Now, how would you like me to do your hair?"

-.-.-.-

Judith took one look at the woman sitting at the bar and knew she'd been had. But she could recognize a good bit of meddling, so she approached anyway. "Either this is a really, _really_ weird coincidence, or Lissy is an evil genius," said Judith.

Kathy nearly fell off the barstool. "Judith," she said.

And Judith _knew_ she hadn't introduced herself at the wedding, so that was weird. "Did Lissy tell you my name?"

"Uh…" said Kathy. "Okay, so, I may or may not have stalked you a teensy bit. I just wanted to know who you were."

"You went looking for me?" Judith said.

Kathy bit her lip. "You made a really good first impression?" she said.

Judith laughed, because that was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard, and Kathy grinned sheepishly at her, and then the bartender was asking if they needed anything to drink, and Kathy was ordering Judith an ice water and herself a Shirley Temple while Judith recovered.

"Oh, god, I don't know how I lived with Lissy for so long without realizing she's an evil genius," said Judith, wiping at her eyes.

"I figured it out when she showed up to the body farm in a pink dress," Kathy said. "Oh, _shit_, is Lissy your sister?"

"Yes, she is," Judith replied.

Kathryn covered her face with her hands. "I've known my brother-in-law's sisters for weeks without realizing."

"There's another one," Judith told her, and snickered when Kathy thumped her head against the bar. "He has three sisters, a brother-in-law, a niece, and a nephew. You get to introduce your brother to his own in-laws."

"Hell no, this is Fisk's dysfunctional mess, he gets to tell Michael, I'm just gonna stand back and watch."

-.-.-.-

"You're brilliant," Rosamund told Lissy, as Judith and Kathy held an excited conversation inside the restaurant.

Lissy turned away from the restaurant's front window and did a perfect curtsy. "I know," she said.

"We really ought to go on a double date sometime," said Rosamund.

"We could do a _quadrouple_ date with these two, our boys, and the newlyweds."

Rosamund grinned at her. "I like the way you think."


End file.
